


Freighter

by jiokra



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aftermath of Torture, Angst with a Happy Ending, Communication, Established Relationship, Finn Whump, Fluff and Angst, Huddling For Warmth, Human Sacrifice, Hurt/Comfort, Loyalty, M/M, Mission Fic, Smut, Trust, Violence, Whump, Worldbuilding, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-24 13:49:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10742961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiokra/pseuds/jiokra
Summary: Some people in the Resistance have difficulties wrapping their head around a defecting trooper—Finn included. Poe sets the record straight by recruiting Finn as his partner for a mission tracking down smugglers aiding the First Order.





	Freighter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> Researched kyber crystals and bacta on Wookiepedia but took slight liberties. There's some references to the Poe Dameron comics.
> 
> Hope you enjoy, thedevilchicken! :) Happy Fandom 5k!

### I

Everything ached—in a good way.

Finn’s muscles screamed in delightful agony, each simmering pull evident of extraneous work and not the demoralizing, slow progress of his back healing. Today he’d crawled through foliage for re-training to familiarize himself with Resistance warfare, albeit unnecessary given his training in the First Order as a foot soldier. But the physicality exhilarated him. He’d spat out mud, shot at targets with his chest weighed down by armor, not full body but guards for his chest. He’d knocked down the most targets, yet unlike his time in the First Order, pride swelled in him after every successful kill shot.

A recruit had tripped over brambles, lasers from locked blasters set to hit her back with air. Finn had doubled back, hooked a hand beneath her armpit, and hoisted her out of harm’s way. They leapt behind a boulder, the mud where she had once laid splattering past the rock as air blasted it.

In the mess, the trainees guzzled down food. Finn tasted nothing, sliding back into the familiar action of eating with a time limit ticking away, yet once his plate was cleared and no one arrived to steal the utensils from his hands, it hit him—he’d scarfed it down because the rigorous training left him famished, not because it’d be a violation to enjoy every morsel.

Not only did his body ache, but his head did, too.

It was a lot to digest, this new freedom. And everyone in his unit glanced at him when they believed he did not notice, the table electrified by unspoken inquiries. He heard the questions raised in hushed voices in the locker room: _Did he really defect? Did Kylo Ren’s saber really splice up his back? Why is he even still with us?_

The scrutiny reminded him of the FN unit, and he slid into the familiar action of ignoring it. Yet the awe jarred him. His prior experiences had only prepared him for animosity.

He longed for the quiet of BB-8’s trilling akin to snores and the clack of screwdrivers shifting as Poe opened up electronics and tinkered. No one asked questions in their quarters, yet Finn often found himself speaking his mind. He had no idea who he was when he was with Poe. It was uncharted territory, glimpses of the man beneath the stormtrooper armor emerging every now and then. He liked that man. Despite his aching body that refused to lift anything heavier than a fork, he yearned for nothing more than shuffling out of the mess, crashing into bed, and praying that man emerged. Stories were bubbling in him, the words racing in his mind to perfect the narrative for Poe. Though he knew that, in the end, he’d only wind up saying a succinct, stoic debrief, but there was something about sharing his day with Poe.

A hand pressed over his shoulder, and he glanced away from his plate. Korin, a Twi-lek with lavender skin, smiled at him. She mouthed words lost over the vociferous chatter cluttering the mess.

Finn leaned closer. “Sorry?”

“I said, you were amazing out there today. I’m impressed.”

Light caught in her dark eyes, violet cones and rods appearing every now and then. Old holovid reels of the Empire desecrating a village of Twi-lek refugees intruded in his mind, and he forced a smile on his face, feigning joy until his cheeks ached.

Swallowing, he said, “Thanks.”

“There’s a bet going on about you, you know.”

She winked, an exaggerated one.

He knew this to be a joke, but her words and their timing reminded him of ripping off his helmet and the joviality from the first blast of fresh air hitting him, only for Phasma to appear from the ethers and reprimand him for a uniform violation.

Companionably, he said, “About?”

“Whether or not you’re good with a blaster.”

Poe had informed him of this preconceived notion on stormtroopers.

“Win anything?”

Her nose wrinkled. “Lost, I think.”

Barricades surrounded him, sliding into familiar formations. He leaned away, and instinctively glanced to the other side of him, and goosebumps rose, as for a second, he had anticipated to find Poe beside him all along ready to divert into a new topic with a clever quip.

He tapped the edges of his empty plate. “I’m a little tired. You tired? I’m tired. I’m going to head out.”

Rising from his seat jarred other trainees out of conversation. He dodged a few persuasions urging him to stay, but the second he returned the plate to the kitchens, he raced home.

* * *

Gentle snores greeted him in their quarters, Poe curled on his side and burrowed beneath layers of blankets. Finn’s old top bunk, the one he slept in when they had been only roommates, lurked in shadows, empty and cold. They now slept it in if one or both returned from a taxing mission and they needed a good night’s rest, uninterrupted by awkward encounters of sharing a bed. Despite his muscles giving out at the sight of it, Finn leaned against the door, looking at Poe. He wondered if Poe would push him away were Finn to crawl into bed beside him, wrap an arm around his waist and draw him close, the warmth of Poe from his shoulder blades to his knobby ankles curled up against him.

He wanted to sleep, with Poe or without him, but needed white noise to drown his mind. To the fresher he went.

* * *

He awakened in dawn light to his mattress shifting.

Poe eased down beside him, and instinctively, Finn grasped his shoulder, tugging him away from the railing.

“Sorry for waking you,” said Poe. “You didn’t come back until late, I guess.”

Poe’s face quivered with a tentative smile, his eyes drowsy. Despite his groggy voice, when Poe spoke, puffs of mint hit Finn.

Finn stared, stoic from sleepiness and the habitual act of shielding himself, but his heart was thumping, stomach tingling. He shifted, pulling Poe beneath him and laying his back flat on the mattress. Finn nosed his ear, feeling Poe’s smile against his cheek, and kissed his neck and down the grey shirt over his chest, never stopping until he reached the waist band of Poe’s boxers, folding over his shirt and kissing the exposed belly.

As Finn lightly kissed a scar on his hip, Poe grappled for the sheets, going deathly still despite his muscles trembling.

Finn glanced at his fists, eyebrows furrowed. “It’s just your hip.”

Poe groaned. “I know, but it’s—it’s really sensitive there, is all.”

“Is it?”

Finn kissed him, flicked his tongue along the jagged scar. He watched as Poe slapped a hand over his head and gripped his hair, tugging. He sucked on the scar, pulling the flesh between his teeth, hickeys on his mind. Come soaked through Poe’s boxers, the cloth sticking to Finn’s bare chest.

Running a finger across the scar, Finn said, “So how’d you get it?”

Poe shifted, batting at Finn’s shoulder. “Let’s change the subject?”

He’d told Finn in excruciating detail about the numbed scar on his calve from when Hutts had tortured him for hours, interrogating him when he’d only been in the Republic Navy for three years. He hadn’t hesitated then, and Finn pulled back now, respecting Poe’s privacy. But then curtains whispered as a breeze drifted through the ajar window, the light of dawn streaking across Poe’s face and exposing flushed cheeks. Recognizing an embarrassed Poe, Finn nipped the scar.

“You keeping secrets from me?”

“Buddy, it’s _really_ not that big of a deal.”

“Seriously? That the kind of game you wanna pull, Dameron?” He sucked on the scar, teeth scrapping over it, tonguing flicking over every uneven edge. Poe’s hand slapped over the crown of his head, clutching and keeping Finn rooted there. Finn ghosted fingers up Poe’s calves, coming to cup his balls.

“Force—shit, Finn, I’m not gonna—last—” He moaned. “All right, _fine_.”

Finn tore away from him, resting his cheek on Poe’s waist, and splayed his fingers over Poe’s ribcage. “Go on.”

Poe swallowed, fingers gripping his curls tight enough to tug at his hairline. “When I was a kid, my dad wanted me to pull some weeds by the shed. I hated that, so I pieced together some rubbish and engineered a mower. Except during the first test, it blew up and nicked me.”

Finn smiled and rubbed Poe’s belly.

“Forget I ever—just _forget that_.”

He tried to imagine that life.

Nothing in his library of memories held that sort of warmth, nor did any of his scars have a pleasant, albeit awkward, memory attached to it. Granted, Finn didn’t have scars. The First Order had their troopers gleaming with bacta, erasing memories from their skin. He didn’t wish for a childhood like Poe’s. The darkness of the past did not define him despite the pain, but something else yearned in him for a future with Poe to fill in the blanks from his life.

Poe’s hand slipped to scratch his ear. Finn closed his eyes and laid over him, drifting through his own grogginess. As he sifted in and out of consciousness, he remembered the other night in the mess with the trainees and the bet. His heart raced, and he traced a line across Poe’s stomach.

Poe tweaked his ear. “You seem contemplative.”

“Yeah,” said Finn. He tapped Poe’s belly. “How was work yesterday?”

“Awful. Paperwork. I was so bored I had an out of body experience and wrote the same line three times,” he said, and added monotonously, “ ‘ _Erratic jump coordinates observed, retraced pathway and confirmed BB-8’s assessment on the first three jumps.’_ ”

“You’re sure BB-8 didn’t finally find a way to hack you?”

“He wishes. What about you?”

“What about me?”

Poe tapped his shoulder, snickering. “C’mon, your day.”

He could lie. The potentials were on the tip of his tongue—yesterday was a mundane, eventless affair. Or it was an exhausting ordeal of extra training sessions, examining the items available in the weaponry, interviewing for more prospective assignments on base. But the barricades which arose last night around Korin, the very fortifications he had washed off last night alongside sweat and dirt, hadn’t arisen around Poe this morning. Trusting his gut senses, Finn reached for the truth and tossed it out before he doubted himself.

Eyes shut, afraid of the look that could cross Poe’s face, he said, “Apparently my unit had a bet on me.”

Poe’s hand stilled over his ear, and neither spoke, the room caught in a limbo of silence. Finn listened to the gurgles and groans in Poe’s belly, and just as he made to change the subject and suggest they get out of bed and officially begin the day, Poe was scratching his ear again.

“Was it the blasters thing?”

Finn drummed his fingers over him.

“Why does it upset—no, sorry.” Poe held the back of his head, rubbing circles over his scalp. “They’re being jerks, but you’re no stranger to jerks. Who are you trying to prove yourself to?”

Startled, Finn shifted. Poe hoisted himself up, baring his weight onto his elbows. Both knew the answer to Poe’s question—it was himself, it was always going to be himself. But he remembered the dread slithering over him last night and the whispers in the locker room not spoken as quietly as his unit thought.

He swallowed, throat parched, and forced himself to answer. “Little bit of both this time.”

They watched one another, silent and still. Then Poe took in a sharp breath, and when he spoke, it swelled with promise.

“They’re all mistaken about you, and we’re going to set the record straight. We’ll fix this.” He grinned wide, eyes furrowed in mirth. “As soon as, uh—” He glanced away. “As soon as we get caffeine in me, that is.”

* * *

Finn stood by a kiosk of sweeteners and milk, slowly stirring his caf to perfection. He buzzed all over as he lost himself in the sight of Poe at their table glowering at the datapad in front him, a caf in hand, yet the caffeine had yet to kick in.

Their mundane little habit.

Their schedules were synchronized that morning, and they went through the familiar motions of catching a quick breakfast in the mess before setting out on their affairs, datapads along for the journey to update their knowledge on the current events facing the galaxy. Finn wore a simple tan shirt with a sliver at the collar exposing his chest, and Poe had promptly crowded him against the closet doors after he dressed, kissing along his throat down to his chest exposed beneath the shirt.

Finn smiled at the memory, eyes wandering over Poe and lingering on the lean stretch of his arms as he clutched his forehead, glowers unrelenting.

“Hey there,” said Karé.

Finn startled, not having noticed her approach.

She smiled at him, reaching across him for a sweeter, narrowly avoiding dirtying the sleeve of her thick sweater with spilled coffee. She looked warm, cozy, the hood bunched up around her neck.

“Morning,” said Finn, tossing his stirring utensil and sipping his caf. “Still got paperwork to do?”

Karé sighed. “Unfortunately. Poe wasn’t exactly all there yesterday. Everyone slacked off a little.”

Finn didn’t set his caf down, sending ripples through it as he spoke over the brim. “That’s implying he’s ever all there.”

She smiled. “You’d think our Black Leader, given all he’s accomplished at his age, that he’d be a bit more organized.”

Finn thought of their quarters, how he’d given up weeks ago that Poe would ever remember to pick up his own socks without Finn sweeping them with a broom into a corner alongside dust and debris. He laughed bitterly, yet a fond smile lingered. “You’d think.”

“You know, he doesn’t have too many people in the galaxy. You didn’t get to meet L’ulo, but he’s—I mean—not to say, because you—”

“It’s fine.”

She poured sweetener into her caf, stirring. “Poe’s experienced a lot. I’ve known him for a few years, and he’s a deceptively difficult person to get to know. I’m just glad he’s found you.”

Finn glanced over the kiosk toward Poe, at his stiff, furrowed brow and exhausted countenance. Poe had told him about L’ulo, how he’d never gotten a proper goodbye and heard his last words through a comlink. At the time, it hadn’t properly hit Poe that the man who’d helped raise him while his parents were way fighting the remains of the Empire was dead, ship blasted out of space into luminous debris, his last words transmitted over radio waves to Poe’s ear. Before Kylo Ren, it’d haunted Poe the most at night, and vertigo sent Finn off his feet that someone had trusted him with this information.

He hadn’t thought that he had ever made Poe happy for Poe in his current state was the only version of him that Finn had ever known. Karé was an honest sort, and he was disinclined to doubt her. Yet observing Poe, watching him glower while sipping caf, Finn’s skin pricked, hairs rising, and he felt the urge to run.

Then he remembered their morning in bed, the ease from being not a notorious legend but the man beneath the armor, the mysterious part of himself which had eluded him all his life. _We’ll fix this_ , Poe had said. _We._

He tipped his caf to Karé and slipped back to the table, sliding into the chair beside Poe. He scooted their chairs close enough for their thighs to touch, and without glancing away from his datapad or relaxing his tense stare, Poe dropped a hand from his forehead to Finn’s knee. Stomach tingling, Finn switched on his own datapad and hunted down the latest headlines detailing the state of the galaxy.

### II 

The console read off a transcript of BB-8’s whirling, and bored out of his skull, Poe read off it as he listened to BB-8, correcting acute mistranslations that weren’t at all incorrect, simply lacking BB-8’s idealistic, whimsical flair. They’d been retracing the freighter jump after jump, course momentarily paused. The flight path’s coordinates were near impossible to calculate, an asteroid belt riddling the potentials, and BB-8 wasn’t confident enough to send a safe pathway without multiple recalculations. Poe couldn’t complain, on account of preferring not to become space dust.

They lurked in vacuous silence, waiting on BB-8’s newest calculation, and Poe examined the radar, exhausted from translating BB-8’s beeps. Last thing they needed was a run in with the wrong sort—or the _right_ one, in Poe’s opinion. General's orders.

BB-8’s whirls morphed into shrieks.

Not only had he secured coordinates to the next jump, but it unlocked the following jump location—a planet called Obsidian skirting the border of First Order territory, a world housing a fringe group of extremists, who rumor had it worshiped the Force as if it were a supernatural being independent of lifeforms. The Church of the Force had broken away from them decades ago, fearing the extremists’ views surpassed even their fringe ideologies. In 3 ABY, a virus hacked into datapads in a bar on Coruscant, advertisements popping up and proselytizing for the rogue sect.

“Beebee-Ate, we’ve literally seen a massive dragon thing hatch from an egg and battle an even _bigger_ dragon thing. I think we got religious weirdos covered.”

Reports detailed missing persons cases, first file belonging to a spy for the New Republic who infiltrated the cult to gauge intelligence, never to be seen or heard from again.

“Come on, pal. Quit hacking government files and send me the coordinates already.”

Numbers flashed on the console, Poe prepping the hyperdrive without fully registering them—then his finger froze over the control panel. “This is sending us back to base. _Beebee-Ate._ ”

Sharp, earsplitting beeps tore out of the droid, and Poe shrunk in his chair.

He could practically see Obsidian looming before him, orbiting with the potential key to dismantling a source for the First Order’s influence. Its proximity and Poe’s inability to do anything about it rankled him, and an impulse screamed at him to buck protocol and BB-8’s coordinates and scope out the magnitude of the smuggling with his very eyes.

Then he realized—were he to brief those higher on the food chain and they to allow him a reconnaissance mission, he could argue for a partner, one with certain skillsets that coupled Poe’s own, a formidable duo.

He grinned as the perfect candidate came to mind: Finn.

He plotted course, biting his cheek at BB-8’s gloating beeps.

Then it was only streaks of stars stretching past him, the nauseous pull of his ship hurdling through hyperspace.

* * *

“Our analysts have confirmed Beebee-Ate’s calculations. The planet Obsidian, close to the borderlands, is mainly tropical flora, non-intelligent lifeforms with an ecosystem for the most part still in its natural state. There’s signs of agricultural and environmental changes here—” The analyst outstretched her fingers on the coastline of the largest continent, zooming to a forest nestled between a beach and a dense mountain range that extended into the majority of the continent. “We’re still running analysis, but we believe that any sort of trading center will be close to that—for lack of a better word—central hub.”

General Organa regarded the holograms, arms braced over her chest. “How soon can you have it?”

“By this evening, ma’am.”

She nodded. “Trust your instincts wherever they lead.”

The planet spun, a central point which, one could argue, the occupants of the command center now orbited. Poe leaned against the center table, palms braced on the edge and soldiering his weight. He examined the forest, trying to make sense of the analysis, and spotted General Organa watching him. Pulse pounding in his ears, he ran through the scripted monologue he’d prepared in hyperspace, and fortunately, few people knew that Finn and he were together. The suggestion to recruit Finn ought to look like wise judgement and not nepotism.

Still, General Organa knew.

But she also knew that Finn’s accomplishments were based wholly on merit.

His pulse still pounded in his ears. He had one shot, and he didn’t want to blast away Finn’s chance to prove himself.

She tilted her head.

Poe steeled himself. “Ma’am?”

“Will you be prepared to leave tonight?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled. “Ma’am?”

Poe shrugged.

“You’ll need a partner,” she said, brow crinkling as she regarded him. _She knows. Of course, she knows._ “Someone who’s trained for this kind of environment and skilled at blending in. Intimate knowledge of the First Order.”

“If it’s not too presumptuous, ma’am—General,” he said, forcing his countenance to still. “Finn’s outstanding in both of those qualifications.”

She regarded at the holograms. “I think so, too.” She switched open the comm. “Docking bay, this is General Organa. Prep a freighter for Commander Dameron and Finn. Sending environmental information.”

The comm crackled back. “Received. Prepping freighter.”

* * *

BB-8 cooed as he sunk into low power mode between the twin pilots’ chairs, wires attached to the backs of the seats and flooring, securing him. It was the closest Poe had ever witnessed to the droid version of a nap, and one of  BB-8’s unique features that were so anthropomorphized in his mind, Poe forgot for a second that the droid was merely exercising features of his core programming.

The control panel flashed an alert.

Obsidian was within grasp, and Poe pulled out of his musings to prep for reentry into realspace. He caught Finn watching his hands work the control panel, a crease between worrying eyebrows as Finn observed him.

“Not lookin’ so good, good lookin’. What’s up?”

Finn eased back into his seat, cheek pinching. “No offense, but it’s never this easy with you.”

Poe grinned. “That’s why the Force brought us together, pal. Your caution makes up for all of my own caution that I tossed to the wind.”

“Really reassuring, Dameron.”

His boots shifted over the rudder peddles, hand raised to the overhead panels, and he eased them out of hyperspace. Obsidian blasted into view before their very eyes, and the adrenaline from his previous mission to catalogue the jump patterns returned in full force. Beside him, Finn cut off a small laugh. Poe leaned back into the chair, knees splayed.

“Don’t play coy, buddy,” he said, hitching up an eyebrow when Finn regarded him. “I know you love me.”

“If you know, then I guess I don’t need to say it.” Finn stared at the planet, yet he bit the corner of his lip, cheek pinched with a smile. “Thanks, Poe. And—I do love you.”

Poe gripped the control column, pitching them toward Obsidian’s atmosphere, and the flop in his belly was not entirely from the force of the freighter being tugged into the planet’s gravitational pull. “Aww, that’s sweet, pal. And you’re welcome.”

“You’re not gonna say—”

Poe monitored the data filtered onto the control panel, recalibrating the ship for entry. He kept his face levelled. “I mean, you said it yourself. I don’t _need_ —”

“—Dameron—”

“Hold your banthas, pal,” said Poe, craning his head back to look at him. He loved the little flicker of disbelief in those brown eyes that melted into bliss whenever he said it. “’Cause yeah, I love you, too.”

* * *

Temperatures could not have been greater than mild, yet the humidity drenched them in sweat as the doors opened, Poe’s head swimming with vertigo before the first boot sloshed in the muddy grass surrounding the freighter. He blinked against the sunlight, slipping off his jacket and wiping the sweat off his brow as he tossed it back into the freighter.

“It’s giving me flashbacks to Yavin 4 in the summer,” he said, a slight whine to the words.

Finn’s jacket sleeve went inside out as he tore it off. “I wouldn’t know. Trooper armor is climate controlled.”

“You didn’t miss much.”

BB-8 rolled off the ramp, shrieking as the first splash of mud soiled him.

They ignored him, securing their blasters as the ramp flung back and the freighter locked up. Poe pulled out his datapad, finding the blinking dot denoting their location and the lined pathway leading to the central hub. Grimacing against the heat, Poe started off on the path without taking his eyes off the datapad, the slosh of boots and succumbed whirling beeps in his wake. They descended into dense forest, Finn brushing aside thick branches before they whacked Poe’s face. Poe whisked a hand before his face, swatting tiny, determined flying insects.

Glancing away from the datapad, he had the map memorized and passed it back to Finn. “Just follow on ahead, I guess,” he said, and he strode with wider, swaggering steps now that his thoughts weren’t obstructed by the datapad.

Finn slowed behind him, analyzing the map, and Poe took this moment to scope out the forest. A copse of trees broke apart for a sisterhood of muddy terrain, much like the one they landed the freighter in. They continued on into the trees, brushing aside wayward branches and monitoring the map to ensure they stayed on course. Soon the trees started to thin out as they approached the central hub, and a pathway emerged with deep, parallel lines carved into the mud.

Wheel tracks.

They readied their blasters.

A clearing broke way to an unguarded brick structure, age dirtying the once scarlet brick in tarry black. The doors were not wide open but non-existent, one blown off its hinges and fallen inward, caked over with mud, and the other bore a single digit painted gold, either a three or an eight. The structure stretched high in the air, blown out windows boarded up with wooden planks from the inside or patched up with torn cloth which rustled in the light breeze. Gargoyles embossed a fine dome frieze above the entrance, faces of ancient Force users gazing at the horizon with blank, uncarved eyes. Despite the abandoned look, the muddy wheel tracks led into the front entrance, and the parallels lines were Poe’s indication that one of the doors had fallen inside the building. It might have been the wind, but Poe swore he heard indiscernible chatter.

They hid behind trees, BB-8 rolling up behind them.

“You go east, I’ll go west,” said Finn. “We’ll meet in the back and trade our insights.”

BB-8’s dome head flew back as he rolled slightly away. He chirped and shook at every note.

Poe bit his lip. “He wants to partner up with you. That okay?”

Finn examined the voltage on his blaster. “If it’s okay with him.”

### III

Whirls, beeps. The broken suction of his boot rising from the mud. The deafening silence he knew lurked with bodies.

Finn forced his muscles to relax, sharp reflexes essential. He’d reprimanded BB-8 for beeping at too high a frequency his data assessment for the mud’s chemistry, and the droid trilled lower, no longer drawing enough attention to him as the clattering leaves overshadowed much of his beeping. Now Finn could focus his attention on the primary objective: the smugglers’ den.

Snickers, doors creaking—they came as loud and blatant as life itself.

Finn jolted, whipping out a hand and shushing BB-8.

“Listen. Hey, _hey_.”

He kicked BB-8’s spherical body, and the droid whipped his dome head back, though the beeps quit coming. He ignored BB-8’s black viewport focused on him and turned his sights toward a kicked open door hidden behind dusty storage crates, ears trained on sounds carried over in the winds. Yet he was too far, detecting only garbled gibberish he knew could become comprehensible were he closer.

The lead was too good. Were he to join with Poe at the back of the building, the smugglers could have disappeared too far into the building, untraceable.

Troopers were expendable, but not Resistance fighters. He knew this, yet he looked down at BB-8, assessing him.

“You’re Poe’s droid,” he said, and BB-8’s dome titled. “You got trackers on you?”

BB-8 whirled lowly.

Finn crouched, curling an arm around BB-8’s dome and smiling with the intent of conveying comradery. “You’re tell me that after all these years of Poe going on routine, nothing special missions where he manages to get caught by First Order informants, after losing him on Jakku and believing he died, only to learn he’d _just_ been tortured by Kylo Ren, that it never occurred to you to stick a tracker in him?” BB-8 shifted. “I know. I understand. It’s against regulation, and on a personal level, it’s reprehensible. But you gotta admit— _ow!_ ”

BB-8 snapped open a valve and zapped Finn, his pants stained with blood, skin stinging as a foreign body entered him.

“You didn’t think to _warn_ me?”

Yet they already shifted into gear, BB-8 rolling back into the forest and sticking out an extra antenna shaped like a satellite, the concave half moon spinning.

“Anything happens,” said Finn, exiting the forest. “Get Poe.”

He dashed across the clearing, slammed his back behind a crate, straining to make out any noise or disturbance. Nothing but _supplies_ and _late_ and _appraisal ought to fix it._ Finn slipped around the craters and scurried into the building.

Holes pocked the cement ceiling, dust in the air illuminated by muddied light casting through glass windows stained blue. Could have been from age or exposure, yet Finn didn’t discount human interference. The tracking device ached as he crept through the warehouse, shifting into position until he no longer felt it. Debris crackled beneath his boot, and he froze, lifting his boot and examining the floor. Maroon shards of glimmering clay, it looked like, littered the cement floor, stretching off into a labyrinthine fork ahead of him. Finn adjusted his grip on the blaster and took the westward turn.

The hallway ended a few paces ahead, a door ajar glowing with flickering orange light. He crept toward it, blaster steady. Every step he knew took him closer, yet the hallway stretched out before him, the glowing orange light out of touch as he encroached it, invading its scope. His eye twitched, brain foggy, and he shook his head in attempt to clear it.

For reasons that were beyond Finn, his thoughts kept cycling to Poe. He focused on the door, fighting to divert his attention back to the mission, yet he kept cycling to Poe.

Poe.

Returning to base was going to be amazing, he figured. Amazingly agonizing. All because of his thoughts, his cyclical thoughts.

His colossal, erroneous analysis, as Finn often referred to it in the privacy of his own head—his own head—its privacy still evident despite the helmet no longer shielding his infuriatingly expressive face, began when Kalonia described the proper administration and caretaking for his medications following the restoration of his spinal tissue. As he inquired whether he could swallow a pain medication instead of dribbling it into his mucus membrane, Poe dashed through the crack of sliding doors into medbay, shoulder banging a wall without his realization.

_“Buddy? Bud—Finn!”_

Once their eyes met, Poe’s harrowed look softened, air escaping his lungs, and Finn remembered the warmth in his stomach, a little innocent, nauseous leap making him lightheaded and dizzy. As though he could topple over—

Finn collapsed against the brick walls of the warehouse, grip loose on the blaster, and it clattered to the floor. Orange light invaded the hallway. A shadow emerged from the ajar door.

He had turned back to Kalonia in jerky movements, having missed the answer to his mucus membrane question and, unable to shake off the terror crawling up his spine over whether it were permissible to raise the inquiry again—the inquiry again—he only smiled in thanks.

At the time, Finn believed Poe’s bizarre entrance and subsequent flustered behavior were ample evidence that Poe held him in a higher regard, perhaps contemplating the minutiae of their interactions hours after the incidents, similar to Finn had since he saw Poe alive and jumping out of his black X-Wing after Takodana.

Finn referred to these notions as “higher regard” and “ample evidence” as clearly none of his deductions were observances of reality, and detachment allowed him to survive the First Order.

Detachment would similarly allow him to survive being handcuffed to Poe and shoved into a single cell, smugglers snickering as the large metal door lacking a window slammed shut.

Nothing like the bitter pill of reality.

Finn slid along the brick wall, silhouettes looming over him in the blinding orange light. He gripped his forehead, eyes tearing up, and his other hand slammed on the floor. The collision with the freezing cement had the nerves in Finn’s palm tingling. The sting traveled everywhere, his fingers, his toes, his knees and ankles, joints aching. “That didn’t happen—that didn’t—”

Poe ruffled his hair, Finn’s wrist slapping his cheek. He remembered Poe’s cheek being so warm, warmer than anything in the galaxy.

“Ah—sorry,” said Poe, dropping their hands fast.

_“Stay with me, Finn. You hear me?”_

Hands gripped his wrist, prying him up from the floor. “He’s First Order.”

“You’re certain? We don’t want to face the Force’s wrath by sacrificing an innocent.”

“This man is no innocent.”

“We’ll be separated eventually,” said Finn to Poe, emotionless. “It’s every man for himself.”

As much as Finn hated to admit it, certain ideologies from the First Order, however antithetical to his nature, were challenging to shake off.

Poe stiffened. “Not gonna happen.”

Finn glared at the metal door. “Being separated or surviving, do you mean?”

“Actually—it’s working.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, look at him.”

“Adelina’s gonna be pleased.”

Poe took in a breath, readying for a response that never came for the door slammed open. Grizzly men with frizzy beards littered with tiny braids swallowed up the doorway. Blasters were hooked in their belts, ammunition crossed over shoulder to chest. Their black, beady eyes turned from Finn to Poe, then the taller of the two said, “Take the muscular one. Wanna see him squirm.”

Laughing, the other man bashed Poe’s head before blasting their handcuffs apart, directing the tip at Finn’s temple before dragging him out of the chamber.

_“No, no, no. C’mon….”_

Then it occurred all so quickly: They dragged him across the darkened hallway, ankles hopping over debris, and they shoved him headfirst against the door, letting it collide with a wall.

A woman with green braids spiraling around her scalp screamed out a chant echoed by religious fanatics as they bowed to a glass coffin. She froze at the sight of Finn, then glided across the room. She gripped his jaw, pulled back his lips for a gander at his gums, and murmured in appraisal. Her hand reached into a pouch hanging off a brown leather belt, and she flung powder in his face. Finn’s face scrunched up, nose itching, and he sputtered.

They hauled Finn toward the glass coffin, the will to struggle never crossing his mind, and he dropped himself in the coffin, pliant as they tucked in the hands and arms hanging off the edges. They sealed it shut, and Finn fought to keep his eyes open, brain fogging to the extent that cognizance evaded him.

It started faintly, warm like a luxurious bath, then the glass grew piping hot, melting off exposed skin before it switched to subfreezing in an instant, so quickly his brain didn’t process it until ages after. He believed. Then he couldn’t think, his eyes couldn’t process the clear sights before him. He grew mortified over the glass cage, his entire body on display for these fanatics, yet he could barely keep a straight face when conversing to Resistance fighters.

His body couldn’t quit shaking, no matter how hard he tried.

Then he distinctly remembered blasts firing, the glass case shattering, warmth grasping him, then heat pooled in his belly at the first sound of Poe’s voice reassuring him that he was safe and sound.

With his pilot.

Were Poe even real.

_“Your—your pilot wants you to—”_

It meant nothing, he thought, brain too unfocused to think of little else. Yet he was vaguely aware of seizing a blaster and grasping his own wrist to steady his hand. He aimed for a head but blasted off a jaw. A second blast plunged into the person’s ear before Finn’s legs gave out. Heading swimming, nausea roiled in his gut. Then Poe’s arms surrounded him, pulling him into a rough, shaky embrace, and they were running through corridors.

Everything hurt. He slipped, palms slapping walls. It burned like fire, like the coffin.

Poe’s words, his reassurances, meant nothing, as Finn was little else but a comrade. An excellent partner for missions as their natural chemistry was unrivalled. Finally, after years of training in the First Order, he had found his unit, his ultimate working team. A new machine in which Finn was a well oiled cog, only his facial movements were on full display. He wanted more than that—more than the constant war, bloodshed, suffering. More. He wanted that unrivaled chemistry, to explore its intricacies off the battlefield and without a blaster in his grip. _“But you have! Force, stay with me.”_  He wanted to hold that inexplicable warmth in his arms and never let go. Let go.

But he had fallen victim to his overactive mind which had drawn uncommon connections in the battlefield, the mind that captured both Phasma and General Organa’s respective attention. Yet it was the same mind that fell victim to folly in civilian life.

He’d honestly thought he had found it in Poe.

Home.

Only he’d discovered a colossal oversight. Chased down errors he believed to be factual. Analyzed rabbit holes leading nowhere.

### IV

“Bacta, Beebee-Ate, bacta. We need a lot of it,” said Poe, hauling Finn onto the freighter and closing his eyes as the heel of Finn’s boot caught on the ramp. Poe tugged, stumbling as Finn’s weight bared down on him, but then he heard that chanting bellow through the forests, and he slammed a fist onto the lever, BB-8 flung into the air as the ramp sealed up.

BB-8 whistled frantically.

“I don’t _know_ where it—no, wait. Check the—check the—” Poe weaseled a hand out from beneath Finn and pressed a palm against his eyes so hard he saw spots. “There’s a, uh—a storage closet. It has a medikit. Actually—there’s a whole stash of bacta in there for moments…” Poe glanced at Finn’s face, the streaks of blood red flesh exposed beneath layers of burnt and flayed off skin. He swallowed. “Moments like this. Force.”

BB-8 disappeared further into the freighter. Poe dragged Finn off to the cockpit, kicking stuff out of their way before he tripped on it himself or it knocked into Finn’s ankles turned inward at sickening, unnatural angles.

“Force, _Finn_.”

He sat on the floor, laying Finn over his legs, and stroked his hair, one of the few places on his head untouched by whatever the fanatics weren’t able to sacrifice to the Force before BB-8’s tracker led them to the ceremonial room. A jagged, sharp point nicked his finger, and he flinched, pulling back to see blood pearling on his fingertip. He parted his hair to get a better look at his scalp. A shard of glimmering crystal was embedded in his skin.

It looked like kyber crystals.

The Resistance would never get a better lead on Obsidian than this.

Without tweezers, Poe didn’t want to risk it, and the bacta was capable of dissolving the substance, regardless. He could tug it out with his nails and place the substance in a bag for testing at the Resistance’s labs. He knew what Finn’s reply to that conundrum would be, but he also knew the reasoning behind it. The same reasoning that led Finn into thinking that embedding a tracker in his leg and diving into the warehouse without back up was a tactical victory: He hated himself sometimes. A lot.

Poe breathed out his nose, ragged yet controlled, and looked at him, quelling the anger at having missed any and all signs by remembering Finn needed not his frustration but his patience. Compassion healed all wounds.

Beeps shrieked down the corridor, and BB-8 rolled in, extensions out and carrying a bacta suit over his dome body. Poe let out all the breath from his lungs. “He’s gonna make it,” said Poe. “Thank the Maker, he’s gonna make it.”

Finn’s lips parts, words babbled out. “Poe?”

Poe caressed an unaffected part of his head, throat heavy. “You’re safe, pal.”

“Take—” He coughed, moaning, and his head lulled away, slipping out of Poe’s touch. “Take it out.”

“You have no idea what you’re saying,” said Poe, yet went for it. Blood and pus poured out of the wound, and after a little manipulation, the shard surrendered, slipping out. It glimmered in the light as Poe held it out to get a gander at it. Definitely a crystal.

An explosion hit the freighter, shaking it so hard, the chairs rattled, supplies clattered off shelves and to the floor. Poe whipped around, eyes locking on a ship soaring over the horizon—a TIE-fighter, an fo superiority fighter whose P-s6 twin ion engines could chase them down before they even broke out of Obsidian’s atmosphere, if the L-s9.6 laser canons didn’t haul them back crashing into the forest without breaking a sweat. Yet the fighter lacked the one thing their humble freighter had going for it—a hyperdrive.

He settled Finn onto the floor, carefully easing his head to the metal sheets, and dropped the crystal in one of BB-8’s storage ports. He grappled for the pilot’s seat, strapping in with one hand, priming the shields and calculating the coordinates for hyperspace with the other. He’d hold them off and buy the shields time to generate, then jump while still on the planet. He just hoped breaking through the atmosphere that quick didn’t cook the freighter.

“Cut off the clothes and prep Finn for the suit,” he barked to BB-8, seizing the control column. He readied the freighter for flight, hands moving so fast he barely saw them, all motor memory. The rudder pedals vibrated beneath his boots, engine roaring.

BB-8 tossed goggles at him.

He gritted his teeth, pulling it over his head and snapping it on like a headband. “Could you have thought of a more opportune time?” he said, lifting off the freighter.

Lasers locked on the ship. He fired, nicking them. Poe swerved the freighter to keep off a steady path, aiming for the ship’s tracker to grow bewildered and never secure a lock on them.

Somber, worrisome whirls came from below, clothes tearing.

“Come on, come on,” muttered Poe, as the lasers locked on the ship, and kept muttering to drown out the noise of clothes peeling off Finn’s flesh.

The console flashed—coordinates in.

“Hold onto him tight for me, Beebee-Ate,” said Poe, grinning.

And they were gone.

* * *

The second they left the atmosphere, a nanosecond after Poe hit the switch, the lights were bust, flickering for a breath before the freighter plunged into darkness.

Poe rifled for the goggles, slipping them over his eyes and blinking past the desaturated monochrome with a green tint—night vision.

BB-8 shrieked, port flying open and his mini lighter erupting into flame. He fell back into his chair, spinning it around. “Okay—regroup.”

BB-8 silenced.

“He’s got the clothes off, so I’ll start with the suit. You figure out how to fix the electricity. Ship’s still travelling, so worse case scenario, the mechanics at base figure it out.”

BB-8 whirled, dome lowered to peer at Finn.

Poe smiled. “It’s going to be fine.”

He collapsed on his knees before Finn, who was naked save for black boxers, and unzipped the bacta suit. It was like an old timey astronaut suit before the skin tight models were discovered centuries ago, the bacta compressed into plastic bags released from a monitor over the chest, not unlike his flight suit. He unzipped it and gently placed a hand beneath Finn’s ankle and knee, easing his leg into the suit. He let out of a rough breath, and he knew the sweat heating up the back of his neck originated from hauling Finn through the forest and flying them off Obsidian, but he’d never become more aware of it until then. Finn’s leg arrived in the suit in one piece, and after allowing himself a brief moment to confirm this, he dressed Finn, going slow. Once all that needed to be done was zip the suit up to his collarbones, he pulled the zipper up to ensure if didn’t get caught on him.

He snatched the translucent, spherical helmet, twisting and snapping it locked. An air mask slithered from the neck of the suit, maneuvering until finding Finn’s face and covering his nose and mouth. He pressed his palm over the glass, glancing away only to release the bacta. It poured out of the packages, and Finn buoyed in the suit as he floated in the body of liquid.

The night vision goggles had Finn’s skin looking green, pitch black blood streaking out of the jagged cut along his brow and swirling in the bacta. Yet these pertinent facts did not sway Poe’s attention, for beneath his hands was the physical reality of Finn alive, safe.

Finn mumbled, air bubbling out of him and released from a valve near the filtration tank cleaning the bacta as it cycled through the suit. The skin of his face was the first to rejuvenate, fibers stitching together, skin materializing. Poe watched as those full cheeks were invigorated. He traced the glass over them—then a flash from the monitor caught his eye. A percentage until total rejuvenation neared 35%. Core body temperature, the cause of the flashing alert, was plummeting, yet by the looks of the data, Finn hadn’t been at his peak before putting on the suit.

The bacta already had a lower liquid heat level than Finn’s current temperature, and helplessly, Poe watched as Finn began seizing, shivers racing through him and quickly turning into convulsions. He glowered at the percentage, questioning whether he ought to wait for it to reach 100%, were Finn not to succumb to hypothermia by the time all his tissue grafted. Gritting his teeth, Poe tapped the helmet, counting down a beat until he’d force himself to make the only decision he had: Pull a living Finn out of the suit, rejuvenate the rest of him at base or pop him back in the suit an undetermined amount of time later. A suffering Finn was a living Finn at the end of the day, the best Finn in the galaxy.

He had no idea what predicament the smugglers had put Finn in, but in the warehouse, he had been ashen, a sickly blue tint to skin which was so cold, it sent goosebumps along Poe’s neck.

He bit his cheek, punching the metal floor, nerves shooting in his knuckles.

He should’ve known.

Finn once told him that he felt as if opportunities rained over him. Opportunities to atone for injustices he’d never committed, but Finn never saw it that way. He reached out at the opportunities, attempting to grasp water that turned to dust upon touching him, slipping through his fingers. The first time Finn told him this, Poe has said: _Pal, it’s tough, but we can’t save everyone. But we can save the future._ Finn’s eyes only grew dark every time, strained as he blocked the emotion from pouring out of him, and Poe soon realized Finn couldn’t dissociate the fact that he’d once been a trooper from his inherent victimhood. Finn felt a sense of personal responsibility that the First Order had killed the people they couldn’t save, and Finn as trooper had been complacent.

But after a while, that sadness eased into understanding, bit by bit, and Poe repeated himself despite feeling like a broken holorecord, waiting for the moment Finn had the confidence to believe it with all of his big heart.

Except sometimes he took a large leap backward.

He pounded the floor. “Should’ve seen it coming.”

Poe closed his eyes, willing the panic in him to subside. Him being a mess wasn’t any help to Finn, where every second tending to him now prevented him from tipping over the edge.

He tapped to the end of his proverbial stopwatch, and without looking at Finn’s face through the helmet, he switched off the bacta suit. The helmet safety lock switched off, bacta slipping back into the pockets. The core temperature notched up half a degree.

He rifled through a medikit for some painkillers. Rolling two extra strength pills into his palm, Poe popped off the helmet, nose crinkling past the sharp, tangy scent of pineapple and citrus, settling it behind him and listening to it roll and collide with the pilot’s seat. He watched the air mask slither back into the suit. He stared hard at Finn’s face, his closed eyes and his parted lips which let slip a broken monologue of thoughts. Poe grasped Finn’s cheek.

“Buddy?” he said. “You hear me?”

Finn moaned. “Poe?”

“It’s me. I’m gonna give you something for the pain. Some pills. You’ll need to swallow them, you understand?”

Finn nodded, and he attempted to lift his head, but it only lolled back.

Frowning, Poe pressed his thumb along Finn’s jaw. “Open up for me, pal?” Finn complied, and Poe slipped in the two pills. He grimaced. “Sorry, no water.” He watched Finn’s throat work, then the most pitiful grimace took up Finn’s face, and he knew the pills went down. “Finn? Everything all right?”

Finn grunted. “Poe, I’m so cold…”

Poe rested hands along Finn’s arms. Finn would dip into hypothermia with only the suit. Possibly their flight jackets might alleviate the matter if Poe could find them.

The bacta was packed away, but the internal temperature was likely still lowered compared to the rest of the freighter. Poe slipped off his shirt, hair ruffled and sticking up as he wrestled it over his head. He zipped open the suit, taken aback by the sight of Finn’s chest: every inch of him grafted back together as if he’d never been in that warehouse—the magic of bacta. He dressed Finn in the shirt, a tight squeeze with Finn’s broader shoulders.

Poe massaged Finn’s thigh, glancing over his shoulder around the freighter for extra jumpsuits or a blanket.

The only source of heat, Poe knew in his heart, was himself.

But he couldn’t accept that.

He glanced around the freighter again, squinting at the ajar door leading into the storage facility where BB-8 found the bacta suit. There might be a cot.

He rubbed his hands along Finn’s leg through the suit so hard he felt burns on his palms. Cursing under his breath, Poe got over himself, and tugged the rest of the suit off. He hoisted Finn over his shoulder, wheezing upon receiving the surprise of his life when Finn’s full weight bared down on him. He rested his cheek against Finn’s ass with the cold, soaked boxers fragranced with bacta. He hauled him off to the small storage room, relieved to find a cot nestled between containers, and apologized in hushed tones when Finn’s shoulder bumped the doorframe. He slowly eased Finn down to the cot, careful to ensure his legs and arms weren’t folded into awkward angles. He tapped Finn’s cheek for a bit, satisfied when Finn mumbled back to him.

“Right,” said Poe, nodding to himself. “Cuddle your boyfriend back to life. Worse things have happened. You can _do_ this, Dameron.”

Poe peered over the storage room, searching for any other plausible alternative. Only he wound up finding some thick blankets. Gnawing on his lip, Poe snatched the blankets, heading back to the cot.

Finn was sitting up, wrestling an arm unsuccessfully out of his shirt. “Damn sleeve, c’mon…”

Poe’s fingers curled into the blanket, unbelieving of how far gone Finn was into his hypothermic state.

“Troopers never wore jackets,” said Finn, whacking the caught arm against the wall. “Couldn’t fit over the armor. Against regulatory—regional—regulation. Regultation. Against regulation.”

Poe stopped thinking, and then in rote movements, he dropped himself onto the cot, grabbing Finn’s arm and collapsing over him, locking him down onto the cot with his weight. Finn sighed, muttered incessantly, and Poe pulled the blanket over them, examining every nook and cranny of Finn to tuck in.

He laid there in silence, staring at the green version of the walls, the storage containers, the sparsely stocked shelves. Finn was an ice beneath him, and he rubbed a hand along his side, coaxing out his own warmth and bleeding it into Finn.

“I don’t... Poe...”

Finn was a fighter by nature, yet the helplessness in Poe’s ability to rouse him back into health did not ease his anguish. He turned to his side, wrapped an arm and leg over Finn, dragging him close, and blew hot air against Finn’s neck.

A hyperventilation threatened to rip through Poe, and he clutched Finn tighter, forcing breath in and out of solely his nose. He asked Finn random questions, coaxing mumbled answers out of him, and ached for this agony to end ideally with a conscious Finn. To keep himself from spiraling into doomsday thoughts, he realized Finn would become terrified were he to awaken in pitch black darkness. He settled a hand on Finn’s forehead as a guide and slipped the night vision goggles off. He put them on Finn, liberally checking to ensure the goggles were positioned correctly.

Now blinded himself, Poe clutched Finn, cheek pressed against his chest, and adamantly redirected Finn’s babbling into coherent conversation.

* * *

Poe told himself he was meditating to calm his nerves, but he awakened from a slumber once Finn stirred back into consciousness, moaning.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” Poe patted over his shoulders, rubbing in warmth. He tried to assess the situation from Finn’s view, and didn’t know how else to lessen the shock. “We’re on a freighter. You’re safe now. I got you.”

Finn broke out in violent shivers. “Wh-what hap-pen-ed?”

Poe sniffed, pressing his cheek against Finn’s breast. “BB-8 got me, we followed the tracker, got you out,” he said, smile curling against his chest, elated. “Relax. We just need you to get warm. BB-8’s taking care of restoring light to the freighter.” A wave of shivers rolled through Finn. He rubbed a hand along Finn’s chilled arm, thinking it didn’t feel so cold. “Still with me, buddy?”

Finn coughed. “Yeah.”

“Great.”

Finn curled into him, a defensive move, and Poe tightened his embrace. “You saved the day again, buddy.”

“I did?”

“Yeah—I mean, it’s kinda how life goes, but in the face of tragedy, good rises from its ashes. Those goons dosed you with some biological warfare. And it’s primary ingredient?” He drummed over Finn’s shoulder. “Kyber crystals.”

“So the mi—mis—sion didn’t fail?”

“Nope. And because of you, the Resistance has got a better chance at defeating these thugs.”

Finn shifted, and Poe hadn’t realized he’d turned to face him until he kissed his forehead. His clattering teeth bumped against him, yet it was as sweet as their first time.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” said Finn, kissing him.

Poe smiled, edging closer till they touched foreheads. “Just makin’ up for the Finalizer, buddy. I owe you a lifetime of rescues. By the way, you’re still recovering, so…”

“Right,” said Finn, and he rolled back around, pressing flush against Poe’s chest, fitting their knees together and ankles tangling. Poe snuck a hand across his waist, tugged his ass to his groin. Finn coughed, a little laugh. “Seriously, Dameron? Is this the time?”

“Pal,” said Poe, “it is always the time.”

### V

Finn walked beside Poe into the command center for the first time since Starkiller. He glanced at the personnel and holograms, and despite no one shifting to regard them as they strode to brief General Organa, Finn’s skin itched from the notion of each person halting, quitting their tasks and turning their watchful eyes on him, frowns carved in their features.

Poe stopped a stride before General Organa, saluting. Finn mirrored him. “General, we’ve uncovered reconnaissance from Obsidian. Intel and field samples.”

“Tell me everything,” she said.

Poe grinned. “I’d love to, but you see,” he said, and turned to Finn, who copied the movement. He clasped his shoulder, countenance gleaming. “The person you really want to ask that to is Finn.”

Poe cocked an eyebrow, eyes softening, an askance.

Finn regarded General Organa. “It may take awhile.”

“Don’t have all night,” she said, beckoning him to join her at the command table. “But my afternoon is now booked for a few hours with your name all over it.”

Poe squeezed his shoulder, and they joined her.

* * *

He’d hoped to never see the inside of a bacta tank again, and when he awakened on a bed, Kalonia checking his vital signs, he felt vulnerable, bared out. He sought out signs of Poe, and he froze at the brown jacket folded at the foot of his bed.

“Just need to check your heart,” said Kalonia, “then you’re good to go.”

He fought to control his nerves, growing exhilarated at the sight of a simple jacket.

Once released, he headed for the mess, both famished and hoping to catch sight of Poe. He grabbed some high calorie bars, too jittery to eat, and spotted his unit across the mess, joined in a post-training meal. He caught the eye of a few of them. Timidly, they waved at him, all burgeoning smiles. Someone stood and snatched a vacant chair from another table, and Finn’s cheeks ached from his smile. He shook a hand to them and gestured to the doors; he didn’t want to stay. Right now, he just wanted to disappear into the bottomless comfort that Poe always provided him.

He’d finished the pathetic dinner by the time he barged into the room, Poe merely looking way from the mechanical mystery perched over his knees. He stretched his legs out on the bed, setting the contraption on the bedside table, and leaned against the pillows pressed against the wall.

His bit his lip, eyes raking over him. “It’s astonishing what a bacta tank can do to a guy. Did it give you a shave?”

Finn shut the door, shrugged off his jacket. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

Poe swung his legs off the bed, jumping to a stand, and grinned wickedly. “That an invitation?”

“All I said, literally, was, ‘I’m gonna take a’—”

Finn dashed for the door, wrenching it open and wrestling off his belt. Poe caught the door before it slammed into the wall, and he didn’t pause to shut it before he wrapped his arms around Finn’s waist, nipping at his ear.

“It was an invitation,” said Poe, breath tickling his ear and having him shudder. He slapped Finn’s hands away from his own belt, fussing the latch out of the hole and pinching on the button of his pants in the same movement. “Admit it, pal. You got a crush on me.”

He shoved Finn’s pants and boxers off, squeezing his ass as Finn kicked off his shoes and his clothes. Finn turned, slipping out his grasp, and removed his shirt. He tossed it nowhere in particular, but Poe caught it. Smirking, he held it on either end, twisting it, then whipped Finn’s thigh.

Finn grinned. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Poe twisted the shirt again and crept over to him, coyly smiling. Finn’s cock treacherously flinched, heat flooding him as he grew hard. Poe hooked the shirt around his neck, and tugged Finn flush against his clothed figure, the points of contact burning as every nerve seemed to fire up. Finn watched Poe’s lips snake into a smile, then Poe gave the shirt a little tug, Finn crashing into him. Poe kissed him, leisure, tender kisses, as if they had all the time in the galaxy dedicated to mapping out each other. Poe’s hold grew slack, the shirt slipping down Finn’s back. Poe’s hand fell to his waist, rocking his clothed hips against Finn’s cock, the cool buttons and harsh fabric a seething burn, making Finn feel more nude despite having no more clothes to remove. Finn dug his fingers into Poe’s hair, tugging until Poe sighed against his lips.

Finn broke away to gather his breath. Poe stood on his tiptoes, lips ghosting over Finn’s brows before kissing his forehead. He settled back down, resting his forehead against his.

“Buddy,” said Poe, voice low in his throat. “You had a point earlier.”

“Being?”

“You do, in fact, smell like the inside of a bacta tank.”

Groaning, Finn shook off Poe’s hand and left for the shower, switching on the water. Finn crouched to find a comfortable position for him to stretch a hand under the faucet to monitor the temperature, and it came to no surprise when Poe sidled up behind to hold his hips, settling a hardened cock against Finn’s ass.

“ _Seriously_?”

“Seri—well, no. We don’t have lube. Don’t forget about that one time with the hallucinogenic flower—”

“I couldn’t walk for days, and not in a good way.”

“I couldn’t piss without...”

Finn’s fingers curled, and he smiled, fond. “That’s when I found out you liked me.”

“It takes a dick in your ass for you to realize if a guy likes you? I serenaded you in the mess, Finn. I sound like a horse.”

“You serenade everyone who brings you your first cup of caf, Poe.”

“I can’t help it that you’re a good person who’s attentive to other’s needs.”

Finn switched on the shower head, stepping into the tub.

“I said something, didn’t I?” asked Poe, and Finn replied by dunking his head under the water and drowning him out.

Poe stepped into the shower behind him, wrist brushing his calves as he reached for a bottle of soap, cap popping and the fragrance of koyo fruit caught in the steam. Poe nudged the showerhead away, chuckling, and poured soap at the nape of Finn’s neck, the shocking cold cream sliding down his spine. Finn’s nails curled against the tiled walls. Poe nudged his shoulder, turning him around, and he squirted soap over Finn’s chest, fingers trailing across the soap’s path in its wake. Poe glanced briefly away to set down the soap, then met Finn’s eyes. Water beat in a hot fury at Finn’s shoulders, yet an invisible tension brewed between them, an unspoken forfeit over whoever looked away. Poe’s countenance remained flat, not a hint of humor in his typically expressive face, which somehow urged laughter to rise in Finn that he assiduously stanched.

Poe snorted—loudly, and stepped into him, pecking his lips. Whatever competitive streak remained found itself in that kiss, and Finn kissed back with earnest, a murmur of enthrallment caught in Poe’s throat as the kiss evolved. He kneaded Finn’s breast, pinching his nipple, and washed from collarbones to hipbones, suds popping and dripping down. Then Poe grasped Finn’s cock with his soap slick hand, running it along his length before palming the tip. Finn tipped his head back, sighing, and Poe nipped his throat before sucking, skin pulled hard between his teeth.

The soap had Poe’s touch frictionless, and he felt himself coming too fast to raise attention to how quick he lasted.  He came with a hiss, muscles seizing to prevent him from falling. Come poured over Poe’s wrist.

He reached blindly for the showerhead and pitched it over his head, angling so water splashed off his shoulders and crashed on Poe’s hand, washing him clean.

As the soap started to dry, the romance wore off, and they remembered why they seldom had sex in the shower. Soon they bickered over the water, waited impatiently as soap dried, and belatedly recalled that sonic showers had their perks, switching off the water for a quick sonic finish.

* * *

Finn lied in bed, fingers twined beneath his head as he stretched out. Poe dried off his hair, laying the towel to dry over a chair, then the mattress dipped as Poe collapsed beside him, elbows overlaying Finn’s as Poe laid down.

They gazed at the top bunk.

“Actually,” said Poe. “I’m a little hurt. I know I didn’t just convey that quite well, but I have a deep seeded grudge at the moment.”

Finn’s ankle shook. “Why?”

He knew why.

“You went off the grid and didn’t tell me,” said Poe, and he shifted, laying on his side. Finn bit his lip, wanting to fall into the mattress and avoid this conversation, but he turned to his side too, looking Poe in the eye.

Finn’s gaze fell, observing the crease of Poe’s cheek against the pillow. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I just don’t know if I’m hurt as your partner or your _partner_ , if you know what I mean.”

Finn smiled, and he brushed a thumb across Poe’s cheek. “I think I get it. And I’m sorry. It isn’t like I’m not trying to work on it, but in the First— I know I’m a difficult man to love.”

Poe grasped his wrist, and Finn glanced up, stomach fluttering over the softness in Poe’s expression.

“Buddy, you’re a lot of things,” he said, smile crooked, “but you’ve never been a difficult man to love. I never want to hear you say that again.” He scooted closer and kissed his forehead. “Now, turn around. I want to cuddle properly this time, and I’m beat.”


End file.
